About 15,025.44 acre land was leased to the government departments for 21 to 33 years as per the policy to generate extra revenue, a Ministry of Railways official told APP.

Giving province-wise details, he said 656.98 acres of land was leased in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 12,667.30 acres in Punjab, 1,560.13 acres in Sindh, 137.25 acres in Balochistan and 3.79 acres in Pakistan Railways network.

He said the assessment of commercial value of the sites was conducted through the accredited evaluators of Pakistan Banking Association / State Bank of Pakistan for fixing a benchmark and then advertisement were given in leading newspapers for leasing.

For agricultural purposes, he said land was auctioned through a competitive bidding by fixing 'ousat bay' rate as reserve price for a three-year lease term for cultivable land and extendable for another three years for barren land.

He said premium shops were leased also through competitive bidding by fixing the reserve price of premium and monthly rent on the basis of market rate of the locality for a lease term of ten years.

The official said the land for stacking purposes was leased for a year and extendable for another year. Nursery purposes, he said, the land was leased through bidding for a term of three years, which was extendable for another two years.

He said for parking stands, the land was leased on yearly basis for already developed stands. For new parking sites, the lease term was three years, extendable for another two years. The official said the Pakistan Railways had earned Rs 16,36.71 million from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Rs 7,299.39 million from Punjab, Rs 2,834.19 million from Sindh, Rs 486.29 million from Balochistan and Rs 513.44 million from railway network.